The morpho butterfly is a popular example of structural color – that is, how the properties of light can be manipulated to create colorful, iridescent surfaces without pigments or dyes. Nature employs this strategy often in insects and feathers. The video above, from Veritasium, does a great job explaining the properties of light and how structural color works as well as some of the applications in human design. If you want to skip straight to it, the butterfly is introduced at around the 1:30 minute mark.

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